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violence and stir up the cold, hungry, and impoverished into riot. Occasionally he had been involved in the search for an anarchist or potential bomber. The Special Branch had been formed originally to combat the Irish Problem, and had had a certain degree of success, at least in keeping violence under control. Now its remit was against any threat to the security of the country, so possibly the fall of a major government figure could be scraped into that category.

He finished the coffee and handed the mug back to the woman, thanking her and continuing along the pavement. He took the last few yards at a run as he saw an empty hansom stop at the intersection, and he hailed the driver.

At the Edgware Road station an Inspector Talbot was in charge of the case and received Pitt in his office with barely concealed impatience. He was a man of middle height, lean as a whippet, with sad, slightly faded blue eyes. He stood behind his desk, piled with neatly handwritten reports, and stared at Pitt, waiting for him to speak.

"Thomas Pitt from Special Branch," Pitt introduced himself, offering his card to prove his identity.

Talbot's face tightened, but he waved a hand for Pitt to sit down in one of the rigid, hard-backed chairs. "It's a clean case," Talbot said flatly. "The evidence is pretty hard to misunderstand. The woman was found with the body, trying to move it. It was her gun that shot him, and it was in the barrow beside the body. Thanks to someone's quick thought, we got her in the act." The expression in his face was a challenge, daring Pitt to contradict such blatant facts.

"Whose honesty?" Pitt asked, but his stomach knotted up with foreknowledge of a kind of hopelessness already. This was going to be simple, ordinary and ugly, and as Talbot said, there was no way of evading it.

"Don't know," Talbot replied. "Someone raised the alarm. Heard the shots, they said."

"Raised the alarm how?" Pitt asked, a tiny prickle of curiosity awakened in him.

"Telephone," Talbot answered, catching Pitt's meaning instantly. "Narrows it down a bit, doesn't it? Before you ask, we don't know who. Wouldn't give a name, and apart from that, the caller was so alarmed the voice was hoarse-and so up and down the operator couldn't even say for sure whether it was a man or a woman."

"So the caller was close enough to be certain it was shots," Pitt concluded immediately. "How many houses have telephones within a hundred yards of Eden Lodge?"

Talbot pulled his mouth into a grimace. "Quite a few. Within a hundred and fifty yards, then, probably fifteen or twenty. It's a very nice area, lot of money. We'll try asking, of course, but the fact the caller didn't give a name means he or she wants to keep well out of it." He shrugged. "Pity. Might have seen something, but I suppose more likely they didn't. Body was found in the garden, well concealed by shrubbery, all leaves still on the trees, barely beginning to turn color. Laurels and stuff on the ground, evergreens."

"But you found it straightaway," Pitt pointed out.

"Could hardly miss it," Talbot said ruefully. "She was standing there in a long white dress, with the dead man draped over a wheelbarrow in front of her, like she'd just dropped the handles when she heard the constable coming."

Pitt tried to picture it in his imagination, the dense blackness of the garden in the middle of the night, the crowding leaves, the damp earth, a woman in an evening gown with a corpse in a wheelbarrow.

"There's nothing for you to do," Talbot interrupted.

"Possibly." Pitt refused to be dismissed. "You said there was a gun?"

"Yes. She admitted it was her gun. Had more sense than to try and deny it. Handsome thing, engraved handle. Still warm, and smelled of powder. There's no doubt it was what killed him."

"Could it have been an accident?" Pitt asked without any real hope.

Talbot gave a little grunt. "At twenty yards, possibly, but he was shot within a few feet. And what would a woman like that be doing out in the garden with a gun at three in the morning, except on purpose?"

"Was he shot outside?" Pitt asked quickly. Was Talbot making assumptions, possibly wrong?

Talbot smiled very slightly, only a twitch of the lips. "Either that or he was left lying outside for some time afterwards; there was blood on the ground. And none inside, by the way." His